Random musings

1. Guilt by genetics. I really can’t understand why we should stay away from pop music because it is, supposedly, a grand-grand-grandchildren of voodoo. Assuming that the version of modern music history that I just heard is correct, i.e., that voodoo begets jazz, jazz begets blues, blues begets rock, and rock begets pop, blaming pop because of voodoo is like condemning me because of what my grand-grand-grandfather did in the 19th century. It’s a bit throwing the baby out with the bathwater, don’t you think?

2. Katy Perry’s parents are Pentecostal ministers. Take that for awhile. They didn’t allow her to listen to “secular music”, and eventually it backfired. That’s why I think some of her songs, like Teenage Dream or Firework, are semi auto-biographical. Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?

3. Sometimes I wonder whether mission trips are a form of therapeutic guilt release to resolve the cognitive dissonance between our conviction to spread the gospel and our daily practice which contradicts the conviction. The question is what the maximum tolerated dose will be before side effects kick in. Spiritual high, anyone?

4. I used to think that my church was too mainstream. Now I think it is too evangelical. Not sure whether it is true or that it is me who has moved leftward.

5. McDonald’s is rolling out Hello Kitty plushies again. Q: Why is Hello Kitty so adorable? A: Because she doesn’t have a mouth. :-)

6. Breaking news: To reflect a more accurate reality, SMRT will change its name to STPD: Slow Train with Problems & Delays.